Count newly-elected Florida Rep. Manny Diaz, Jr. among a number of state lawmakers who are public school district employees. But Diaz, an assistant principal in the Miami-Dade public school district, isn’t just a cheerleader for traditional public schools.

He’s also a huge – and very vocal - advocate for school choice.

“We have an evolving student body – different than what it was five years ago,’’ Diaz, a Republican who represents his hometown of Hialeah, said during a recent telephone interview with redefinED. “I do believe we have to look at all the options.’’

Diaz has been appointed to the House Education Committee, as well as the K-12 and Choice & Innovation subcommittees. Among his goals there: to help guide fellow lawmakers and education leaders toward reform that is “student-centered and parent-centered.’’

To that end, Diaz said he fully supports district programs, such as magnet schools; high-quality charter schools; and other nontraditional options, such as tax credit scholarships.

“I think the competition makes our educational choices better,’’ he said. And better can only be defined by results. “I’m big on the accountability side,’’ Diaz said. “It’s a matter of having the political courage to move forward, to take measures already in the law.’’

If a district school isn’t helping students succeed academically, bring in interventions, he said. If a charter school isn’t operating ethically, shut it down.

Diaz also responded to recent news reports in which Gov. Rick Scott called for private schools that accept tax credit scholarships to give those students the same tests as their public school peers. (more…)

Tony Bennett on testing voucher students. From Gradebook: “I do believe we have a responsibility, be it at a public school or whatever, when we are spending taxpayer dollars - and I go back to what I believe we should do, set expectations, set standards and hold people accountable - that we should be able to prove that schools perform for the money they are given.” Full Q&A in Tampa Bay Times here.

More Tony Bennett. Lakeland Ledger: “Let's just hope he brings to the position a more inclusive management style than that of his predecessors."

“Life is combat.” From the Palm Beach Post’s Jac Versteeg: “Good morning, children, and welcome to your first day of first grade at Eddie Eagle Charter School. We will be piloting the new NRA curriculum the Florida Legislature has mandated for all public schools. My name is Mr. LaPierre.” Putting deputies in elementary schools makes more sense that arming teachers, editorializes the Northwest Florida Daily News.

Ed funding. The Gainesville Sun’s Ron Cunningham references the Legislatures “slash-and-burn approach to funding education” in his year-ahead column. The Ocala Star-Banner’s editorial board says the state’s “cheap route on education” is to blame for the Marion school district’s failure to meet class-size requirements. The Sun makes the same case for noncompliance in Alachua County.

On the right track. Broward Community College President J. David Armstrong notes how much academic progress Florida has made in the past decade. South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Career academies. Students in Palm Beach County’s career academies will get a chance to shadow professionals at their jobs, thanks to a partnership with the business community, reports the Palm Beach Post.

Rocky year in the rearview. A glance at the past year in Florida education from the Tallahassee Democrat. Some superintendents want a break from new mandates in 2013, the Democrat also reports.

School grades don’t show much. Editorializes the Palm Beach Post.

Gerard Robinson. The former Florida education commissioner, who stepped down three months ago, will be among the panelists next week responding to a new Brookings report on standardized testing and the Common Core. More here.

DOE responds to Tampa Bay Times contracting story. I can't remember the last time DOE did a point-by-point, line-by-line rebuttal to a story. Press release here.

Career academies. Get a nice write-up in the Gainesville Business Report.

Testing. New Duval Superintendent Nikolai Vitti removes some internal standardized tests from the district schedule, prompting praise from teachers union president Terrie Brady, reports the Florida Times Union.

FCAT. Will any private schools that accept tax credit scholarships give it? Asks Gradebook.

Contract talks. Continue next week in Palm Beach County after nearly falling apart last week, reports the Palm Beach Post’s Extra Credit blog.

Schools put kids in reach of convicts. Tampa Bay Times columnist Sue Carlton.

Florida’s next education commissioner will inherit a job that makes juggling chainsaws look easy. He or she must get under the hood of a complicated accountability system, ride herd on a historic shake-up of public education, dodge slings and arrows while walking a political tight rope and leap tall buildings in a single bound.

And yet, the job remains so compelling. Florida is the nation’s most promising bridge to an education system that can more fully give teachers and parents real power to help kids live out their dreams. In the last 10 to 15 years, no state has focused more on the low-income and minority students who are now a majority in Florida public schools. Simultaneously, no state has opened the door more to alternative learning options – options that have both empowered parents and multiplied the potential for educators to innovate. The result has been both dramatic and nowhere near enough. The next commissioner must find ways to continue the momentum.

To that end, we hope he or she can nimbly rotate hats long enough to also assume the role of explainer-in-chief. We know this won’t be easy; education reformers in Florida operate in an environment that is particularly tense and, in the past couple of years, has become downright ugly. But we can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, the temperature will drop a few degrees if fair-minded people can be persuaded that not every education idea and not every education reform is a zero-sum proposition. Sometimes, they really can work in harmony with the other parts.

This is especially true with school choice. The sincere goal here isn’t “privatization,” it’s personalization. It’s about expanding options so more kids can be matched with settings that maximize their potential, and yes that includes private and faith-based options.

There’s no reason, and so far in Florida no demonstration, that these options have to come at the expense of traditional schools. It’s entirely possible – and many of us think it’s absolutely necessary – to support traditional public schools at the same time we push for additional options that, for individual students, may work better. (more…)

Though we know little about the parents who long have chosen their school through where they decide to live (or to pretend to live), Florida keeps count of those who no longer want their neighborhood school. And here's some data to chew on: In a state known for its breadth of learning options, that number last school year reached 1.2 million.

In other words, using a conservative approach with new 2011-12 enrollment records, 43 of every 100 students in Florida public education opted for something other than their zoned school.

This number is produced largely from state Department of Education surveys required of the 67 school districts and reflects, not surprisingly, surging growth for choice options. Though total public school enrollment grew by only 1 percent last year, reaching 2.7 million, charters grew by almost 16 percent, online by 21 percent, private scholarships for poor children by 17 percent. (See an enrollment compilation of 2011-12 options here.)

Granted, Florida is not like most other states in this regard. A combination of educational, budgetary and political factors, including the gubernatorial tenure of Jeb Bush, has put the Sunshine State on an accelerated path of parental empowerment. That said, it is a diverse, highly populous state with national political significance, and this kind of transformation is central to the new definition of public education.

The national education debate is still absorbed by adults who grew up with a pupil assignment plan built almost entirely on geography. Many of them went to the same schools as their parents and even their grandparents, and it’s natural they would define public education that way. That may help explain why parent activists or groups such as the PTA continue to oblige the teacher unions that pressure them to resist laws giving parents more options. The union message – that traditional public schools are endangered – plays to the parents’ natural fears.

That’s why these numbers are worthy of pause. (more…)

It’s one thing to hear school choice stalwart Jeb Bush or a think tank researcher state the obvious about school choice in Florida – that it’s now a fundamental part of the education landscape. It’s quite another to hear it from the likes of Alberto Carvalho, the well-respected superintendent of the Miami-Dade school district.

A news video shows him saying this to a reporter after a recent education summit (his remarks start at about the 4:30 mark):

Change is going to accelerate. And you need to learn about what the change is, impose your own change just to survive. We are now working in an educational environment that is driven by choice. I believe that is a good thing. We need to actually be engaged in that choice movement. So if you do not ride that wave, you will succumb to it. I choose not to.

It would be noteworthy if any big-district superintendent in Florida – where school choice is both nearly mainstream and perpetually hot button - spoke as refreshingly as Carvalho. But it’s especially significant coming from the Miami-Dade schools chief because 1) no district in Florida has made bigger gains with its students over the past decade, and 2) among the state’s biggest districts, it has among the highest concentrations of enrollment in magnet schools, career academies, charter schools and in private schools via tax credit scholarships.

In other words, the parents in Miami-Dade are seeking out school choice options more than most; the proliferation of options hasn’t hurt student achievement; and the superintendent, rather than feeling besieged, is being proactive.

It would be wrong to suggest Carvalho is alone. Other school leaders in Florida have positively responded to change; sometimes, it even makes headlines. “We have never had to compete before,” Walt Griffin, the new superintendent in Seminole County, Fla., said in a recent story about expanded learning options – public options – in that district. “People who home-school or send their children to private or charter school might not know what we have to offer.”

Without a doubt, there are myriad areas where superintendents and school choice supporters disagree (just like there are plenty of areas where supporters themselves butt heads.) But Carvalho’s comments acknowledge that expanded parental choice is a dynamic that isn’t going away. Indeed, when hundreds of thousands of Florida parents have collectively selected magnet schools, career academies, charter schools, vouchers, virtual schools, etc., how can it? The most pressing debate is how the players involved, including school districts, can continue to expand options in the most efficient and effective ways.

Maybe I'm reading too much into a sound bite, but I think Carvalho’s comments also suggest he doesn’t see the “either/or” that has seeped into so much of the school choice debate. At its core, despite the boilerplate story line, this is really just about giving parents more options.

(Image from asiapac.com.au)

by Gerard Robinson

Florida has long been a national leader in the field of educational choice. From the introduction of charter schools and the Florida Virtual School in 1996 and 1997, to the creation of the McKay Scholarship program for students with disabilities and the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program for low-income families in 1999 and 2001, Florida continues to offer its families more choices than ever.

While critics have argued that such programs are harmful to our traditional public school system, our experience in Florida shows the opposite is true. The effect of providing other educational options to our students has benefited not only the students who have participated in these choice programs, but the vast majority of students who have chosen to remain in our traditional public schools as well.

The positive effect of increased educational options is evident in the continuous upward surge in student performance in our public schools over the past 15 years. Although still only a small percentage of the population of our traditional public schools, the choice programs have created a healthy competitive environment that has contributed to the improvement of our traditional public schools’ existing educational programs. They have also helped motivate the introduction of new programs to meet the educational needs of public school students.

From magnet schools to career academies, controlled-open enrollment and Advanced Placement, Florida school districts have introduced numerous new programs and schools that provide unique learning opportunities tailored to the interests and aptitude of their students. In fact, the latest data provided by school districts indicates that of the 2,682,214 students who attend K-12 public schools, nearly 30 percent attend schools other than the one to which they were assigned.

But more than providing competition among the providers of education in our state, school choice is about giving parents, rather than geographic boundaries, control over their child's educational opportunities. School choice is not so much about one type of school being “better” than another as it is about empowering parents and helping them learn how to become active participants and decision-makers in finding the best educational environment for their child. While thousands of parents will continue to make the choice to keep their children in the public school to which they’ve been assigned, the very fact that they have a choice contributes to the type of parental engagement that is so important to the education of our children.

As the number of educational options available to Florida’s children continues to grow in both the public and private sector, there are two important goals that need to be at the forefront of how our state effectively manages this growth. (more…)

Some of us at redefinED will be at the American Federation for Children summit tomorrow and Friday, where there will be lots of discussion about school choice and education reform. As good a time as any, we thought, to offer a snapshot of where Florida stands. Check out these numbers, which Doug Tuthill, the president of Step Up for Students and a redefinED host, shared last week with business leaders at a Leadership Florida event:

The numbers (carefully compiled by Jon East, vice president for policy & public affairs at Step Up) are from 2010-11 and we know in many cases the current figures are even higher. Charter school enrollment, for example, topped 175,000 this year, and the tax credit scholarship program serves more than 39,000 students. Altogether, the numbers underscore two things we emphasize at redefinED: School choice - the kind that allows parents to go beyond their neighborhood school - is becoming mainstream in Florida. And the lines between "public" and "private" are more blurred here than in any other state.

The AFC conference agenda includes Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and an all-star line up of choice experts and advocates. We're hoping to have a little time to update you on what's going on with blog posts and tweets. For the latter, follow us at @redefinEDonline.